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Ballot Measure 90 Falls Short

Ballot Measure 90 Falls Short

Ballot Measure 90, the Oregon open primaries initiative, was rejected by Oregon voters on Tuesday.

"Open Primaries was founded with a long term vision and a recognition that we need to build, brick by brick, a new reform coalition," said John Opdycke, President of Open Primaries. "We ran a campaign to mobilize younger voters and independents, but this was an extremely partisan, low turnout election year, and we were not able to break through."

The most recent Gallup Poll (October 29-November 2) revealed some of the headwinds faced by the structural reform movement. According to Gallup, interest in voting among independent voters plummeted this year. The 41% who said they were ‘absolutely certain’ they would vote was down 19 percentage points from 2010, by far the lowest level of independents' intended turnout in any midterm since 1994.

Opdycke continued: "I congratulate the Yes on 90 coalition for their hard work. The inclusion of all voters in the process remains our national focus, and this is strongly resisted by the political parties.”

"Open primaries is a new approach to addressing hyper-partisanship, voter exclusion, and gridlock," added philanthropist John Arnold, who provided the initial funding to launch Open Primaries. “It's a complex issue and the opposition is well organized. We have a lot of work ahead of us."